Post by cjm on Aug 28, 2016 17:51:50 GMT
www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=5595873#post5595873
On August 25, 1991, an obscure student in Finland named Linus Benedict Torvalds posted a message to the comp.os.minix Usenet newsgroup saying that he was working on a free operating system as a project to learn about the x86 architecture. He cannot possibly have known that he was launching a project that would change the computing industry in fundamental ways. Twenty-five years later, it is fair to say that none of us foresaw where Linux would go — a lesson that should be taken to heart when trying to imagine where it might go from here.
At the time of the announcement, Linux was vaporware; the first source release wouldn't come for another month. It wasn't even named "Linux"; we can all be happy that the original name ("Freax") didn't stick. When the code did come out, it was a mere 10,000 lines long; the kernel community now adds that much code over the course of about three days. There was no network stack, only Finnish keyboards were supported, many basic system calls were absent, and Linus didn't think it would ever be possible to port the kernel to a non-x86 architecture. It was, in other words, a toy system, not something that seemed poised to take over the world.
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www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=5595848#post5595848
As its importance has grown, development of Linux has steadily shifted from unpaid volunteers to professional developers. The 25th anniversary version of the Linux Kernel Development Report, released by the Linux Foundation today, notes that "the volume of contributions from unpaid developers has been in slow decline for many years. It was 14.6 percent in the 2012 version of this paper, 13.6 percent in 2013, and 11.8 percent in 2014; over the period covered by this report, it has fallen to 7.7 percent. There are many possible reasons for this decline, but, arguably, the most plausible of those is quite simple: Kernel developers are in short supply, so anybody who demonstrates an ability to get code into the mainline tends not to have trouble finding job offers."
On August 25, 1991, an obscure student in Finland named Linus Benedict Torvalds posted a message to the comp.os.minix Usenet newsgroup saying that he was working on a free operating system as a project to learn about the x86 architecture. He cannot possibly have known that he was launching a project that would change the computing industry in fundamental ways. Twenty-five years later, it is fair to say that none of us foresaw where Linux would go — a lesson that should be taken to heart when trying to imagine where it might go from here.
At the time of the announcement, Linux was vaporware; the first source release wouldn't come for another month. It wasn't even named "Linux"; we can all be happy that the original name ("Freax") didn't stick. When the code did come out, it was a mere 10,000 lines long; the kernel community now adds that much code over the course of about three days. There was no network stack, only Finnish keyboards were supported, many basic system calls were absent, and Linus didn't think it would ever be possible to port the kernel to a non-x86 architecture. It was, in other words, a toy system, not something that seemed poised to take over the world.
...
www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=5595848#post5595848
As its importance has grown, development of Linux has steadily shifted from unpaid volunteers to professional developers. The 25th anniversary version of the Linux Kernel Development Report, released by the Linux Foundation today, notes that "the volume of contributions from unpaid developers has been in slow decline for many years. It was 14.6 percent in the 2012 version of this paper, 13.6 percent in 2013, and 11.8 percent in 2014; over the period covered by this report, it has fallen to 7.7 percent. There are many possible reasons for this decline, but, arguably, the most plausible of those is quite simple: Kernel developers are in short supply, so anybody who demonstrates an ability to get code into the mainline tends not to have trouble finding job offers."